The Hollywood Reporter spills the beans on Andrew Meieran’s transformation of Clifton’s Cafeteria, one of L.A.’s oldest operating restaurants, into a Tiki-obsessed, hipster-jocking, salad-bar-sporting hot spot. “There is going to be some ‘frou-frou’ here and there,” he tells the daily trade, “but there will still be a Clifton’s for everyone.”
Tomorrow, city councilman Jose Huizar’s “Bringing Back Broadway” gang will gather Downtown with Meieran for an unveiling of Clifton’s original facade, a vintage art deco showpiece from the location’s 1935 debut mostly only remembered through photos. The impersonal, rectangular metal grates covering the facade will be removed at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, showing a classier side of Clifton’s not seen since the fifties. It will no doubt be inspiring to find an original Broadway building buffed back to its full luster among the many currently clinging to life as impromptu churches and fake gold jewelry shops.
